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ROME was the political and social centre of the world when the religion of Christ began to make its way. Rome still claims to be the centre of the Christian world. It believes that its claim is founded in history; that the Pope sits in St. Peter's chair, and to him alone has been bequeathed through Apostolic succession, the power of the keys.
"Thou art Peter," Jesus said to Simon the fisherman, "and on this rock will I build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."
And the Roman Catholic Church maintains that Peter founded the Church in Rome, and was its first bishop. They, therefore, are the only real representatives of the primitive Church; and, as such, they alone have the authority to dispense eternal life and death.
This tremendous claim raises the question of the origin of the Church in Rome to the status of a challenge. Can the story of the obscure beginnings of this Church be told? Can we discover it from the pages of the New Testament?
If our quest were a doctrinal one, we should deny that Christ deliberately set apart Peter as the foundation-stone of His Church. We do not believe that He meant that through this man, set apart as the first channel of Divine Grace, the entire stream was to flow down to the priesthood that historically descended from him, and through no other channel whatsoever. At the opposite extreme stands the view that Peter's confession: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," was the rock on which Christ meant to found His Church. But it was not this Creed, this definite form of words, that had appealed to Christ. And in point of fact it has not been made the one Confession of the Church of Christ in history. Not on Peter the man, not on the rough, impulsive, wavering fisherman; nor yet on his soaring confession did Christ found His Church. But on what Peter had become at that momenta believing soul uttering the adoration of faithon that was the foundation laid. Peter is the type of all believing souls who confess. And wherever we find believing souls making united acknowledgment of the Lordship of Jesus - there we have the Church.
But our quest is rather for the evidence of history concerning this tremendous claim of the Church of Rome. And the track is hard to follow, for there are many gaps, many points where it is quite overgrown. And first there is a thicket of groundless assertion to cut through, ere we get into the neighbourhood of the true way. The claim of the Roman Church is that it was through Peter that the light of the new faith first sprang to birth in Rome. He came to Rome in the year 42AD, they say, was the first to preach Christ there, was the founder of the Church, and remained its bishop for a continuous period of twenty-five years thereafter.
The opportunity provided by the New Testament for such a tradition is meagre in the extreme. We read in the book of Acts that after Peter had escaped from prison, and had reported himself to his friends in the house of the Upper Room, "he went to another place." This vague "other place," it is maintained, was Rome (Acts .17).
But we turn over a few pages of the book of the Acts, and on the page that records the dispute between Jewish and Gentile Christians, when the matter is referred to the Apostles and elders at the head of the Church in Jerusalem, we find that it is Peter who first stands up to give the weight of his authority on the side of the Gentiles. And this is only ten years after the date when he is supposed to have gone to Rome. It would seem that he had only separated himself from the Church in Jerusalem during the brief period while his life was in danger, and, so far from being absent from Palestine twenty-five years, he may on this occasion never even have crossed its frontier. When Paul writes his letter to Galatia, he knows of no residence of Peter outside Palestine, except in Antioch. And when he writes later to Rome, and speaks of his longing to visit the eternal city, he says it is "by way of refreshing your memory I have written to you somewhat boldly, in virtue of my Divine commission as a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles," and "I have made it my ambition always to preach the Gospel only in places where there had been no mention of Christ's name, for fear I should be building on another man's foundation." And he explains that it was because he had found so many openings elsewhere in the East, that he had been prevented again and again from coming to them (Rom.xv.l5f, 20f.). Surely if that means anything it means that Paul was certain that neither Peter nor any of the other Apostles had preached in Rome. And this letter was written seven years after that conference in Jerusalem - seventeen years after the date which the Church of Rome believes to mark the commencement of Peter's long ministry in that city. And in the account of Paul's arrival in Rome three years later still - it is related that he found the Jews there expressing only the haziest notion of what had been going on in the East. No one had written or told them of Paul and his doings. No authoritative person had given them any account of Christianity; and though they had their suspicions of this sect that was everywhere spoken against, they were willing to give Paul a hearing that they might judge at first hand (Acts xxviii.17-23). Twenty years after the date of Peter's supposed arrival in Rome! True, towards the end of the second century we begin to hear of the Church in Rome having been "founded and constituted by the two very glorious Apostles Peter and Paul." But Irenaeus is speaking loosely or under a misapprehension. Clement of Rome, writing about the middle of the second century, while he speaks of the two as known witnesses to the truth, does not claim them as founders of the church in the eternal city. And Ignatius writing about the same time, states the truth accurately when he says that Peter and Paul were known in Rome, and their influence was recognised there, but not that they were founders. When Paul writes his letter to Philippi, possibly about the end of his second year's imprisonment in Rome, there is still no sign that Peter had come. The earliest tradition to which any probability attaches is that recorded in Eusebius' History of the Church, which represents Peter and Paul together in Rome and together suffering martyrdom during the Neronian persecution.
We may take it as certain, therefore, that Christianity had come to Rome long before either Peter or Paul had visited it. When Paul landed at Puteoli, he "found brethren" there, and a week later he was met on the way up to the imperial city by other brethren (presumably from the capital) at Appii Forum and "Three Taverns" (Acts xxviii.l4f.). Paul's letter to Rome, sent to herald his coming, was addressed to Christians who were already there, and we gather from the letter that they already had the sacrament of Baptism, and were in the habit of celebrating the Lord's Supper, even if they had not as yet been organised into one Church.
How then, did the Cross come to Rome? How much do we know about these first Roman Christians? Let us open the last page of Paul's letter to the Roman Church. It is a page of names. Has it any story to tell?
It is the very general opinion of recent criticism that this is not a bit of the letter to Rome at all. It is a loose page of a letter to Ephesus, which has somehow found its way into this Roman letter or got tacked on to the end of it. Some MSS. place the ascription that closes the chapter at the end of the fourteenth chapter, as though the letter ended there at one time. But it is not characteristically Pauline, and may have been a liturgical addition by a later hand when the letter came to be read in Christian churches. It is not impossible that Paul may have used the letter as an encyclical, after it had fulfilled its first purpose as a communication to Rome, and in doing so may have omitted the fifteenth chapter and the long list of greetings (sixteenth) when he sent it elsewhere. There are three benedictions, however, which seem puzzling (xv.33, xvi.20, and xvi.24). But the last is probably an interpolation. So that we are left with two. And this gives us little ground for supposing that the letter is not a unity. Often when long letters are sent, they are enclosed in a letter of personalities, which forms a kind of envelope; or a long document is sent in a covering letter, as we may suppose the Fourth Gospel to have been sent with the first Epistle of John as a preface or after word. It may be so here. The letter to Rome may have been finished for some time before an opportunity occurred for sending it. And when Phoebe passed through Corinth on her way to Rome, the Apostle may have seized the opportunity, and given her this commendatory letter, with the special greetings. There is nothing in these external peculiarities that forbids us ascribing this chapter to Paul when he first sent this whole letter to the community in Rome. And unless we find insuperable difficulties in the chapter itself, we have no real reason before us, requiring us to say it is another letter or part of another letter altogether. Four reasons are adduced for the view that it is a letter to Ephesus: (1) The greeting to Priscilla and Aquila, (2) the greeting to Epaenetus, the first-fruits of Asia, (3) the fact that Paul knew about so many an unlikely familiarity with a church he had never visited, (4) the special descriptions he attaches to so many. None of these reasons are insurmountable.
And four preliminary general considerations deserve to be mentioned by way of countering these:
(a) There are five or six distinctively Roman names, Junias, Ampliatus, Urbanus, Rufus, Julia one of which at least - Juntas - was borne by a Jew; and of the thirteen or so Greek names, three or four at least, probably more, Andronicus, Apelles (Abel), etc., are the names of Jews. There were many Jews and Greeks in the imperial city, some of them traders, some slaves.
(b) Of the twenty-six Christians definitely named or designated (for two are unnamed), no less than fourteen bear names which have been found on sepulchral inscriptions of persons of Caesar's household who were contemporary with Paul, and nine or ten are Greek: Urbanus, Rufus, Ampliatus, Julia, Junias, Stachys, Apelles, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Hermes, Hermas, Patrobas, Philologus, Nereus.
(c) Again, of the twenty-six it is only twelve with whom it can be maintained that Paul claims personal acquaintance. And in the case of four of these, the personal acquaintance is at least doubtful.
(d) When it is remembered that Paul had heard all about the Christians in Rome from Priscilla and Aquila; and further that there was a full and constant intercourse between the East (particularly Ephesus and Corinth) and the imperial city, a great deal of the wonder that Paul should have known so many is removed.
But now when we begin to study the names in detail, one question at once arises to the lips about all the special descriptions he attaches to them. Why is Paul at such pains to claim familiarity with, and to tell so much about so many of them? It is quite out of the usual course in his letters. Why is it that he thus strains every nerve to recall all.that he knows of these friends? Is it at all likely that he would do so in writing to a congregation with whose members he had had long and intimate intercourse, and with whom he hoped to be in touch soon again? Surely the psychological probabilities are all against that. It is far more likely that he is writing to a community with which he has had as yet little to do, and with which he wants to ingratiate himself by recalling every possible tie he knows of.
But why tarry over this general consideration? Let us come to the details. The chapter begins:
"Let me introduce our sister Phoebe, a deaconess of the church at Cenchreae; receive her in the Lord as saints should receive one another, and give her any help she may require. She has been a help herself to many people, including myself ..."
Phoebe may have tended Paul in sickness at Cenchreae, on his way home from his second journey (Acts xviii.18). It is quite unnecessary to suppose that because she belonged to Cenchreae she was therefore sailing from Cenchreae, and that accordingly her destination must be a port on the coast of Asia. Paul wrote his letter to Rome from Corinth, and if Phoebe were travelling to Rome she would naturally cross the isthmus to Corinth and sail from there. And of course she would call and say good-bye to the Christian friends in Corinth. Probably she would have some days to spend with them waiting a suitable vessel. Paul would gladly seize the occasion of Phoebe's journey as a providential opportunity for the sending of a letter as a preliminary to the fulfilling of the resolves he had made in this very town. Here all his longings Rome-wards had been stirred by the news of the coming of the Cross to Rome, which Aquila and Priscilla had related to him. Nay, his longings would have been all the keener at this moment, if these two friends were once more in Rome.
And notice how he proceeds. The introduction of Phoebe is soon over. She had her own errand and her own friends. A general introduction to the whole Christian community needed few words from him.
"Salute Prisca and Aquila, my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus, who have risked their lives for me; I thank them and not only I but all the Gentile Churches as well."
These are the words that have given the critics greatest pause in assigning this chapter to the letter to Rome.
Is it not the case that when Paul joined these two people in Corinth, they were exiles, recently expelled from Rome? And when we find him leaving their company at length, they are settling down in Ephesus. Six years have passed since then. Are they now, at the date of this letter, back in Rome? Some eight years later, when Paul writes from Rome to Timothy, bishop of Ephesus, he sends greetings to Prisca and Aquila. Had they never left Ephesus? And must we give up the view that this chapter is part of the letter to Rome? They had been driven out from Rome as disturbers of the peace. True, but the edict of Claudius had never been fully carried out; there were too many Jews in Rome to make it practicable. In fact it had very soon fallen into abeyance. Why, Paul's letter to Rome was sent to a community in part Jewish-Christian, and later, when he came to Rome, the first thing he did was to invite the synagogue to a conference. And surely Prisca and Aquila would have many a tie calling them back to the city where their home had been, and where many of their first Christian associates and friends still lived. "My fellow-workers in Christ" Paul calls them; but there was no reason why he should say that to Ephesian Christians. They all knew how intimately these two had been associated with Paul in the work there. But if this is a genuine bit of the letter to Rome, he would have every reason to say it. He is anxious to give as many reasons as he can for his desire to visit Rome; and he is saying in effect, "I have old friends and fellow-workers among you." And "they risked their necks for my sake." Only in Ephesus or Corinth could this incident have occurred. Not Corinth, surely. There had been no need of any intervention there. Gallic, the strictly constitutional Roman, refused to interfere in the religious controversy, and drove Paul's accusers from the judgment-seat. But would there be any need to remind the Ephesians of something that had occurred in their midst-so recently? And surely the very fact that Prisca and Aquila had incurred danger in Ephesus would be an urgent reason why they should leave the cityfor a time at least. Whither would they go, if not to their old home in Rome, where all their longings were? And Paul, writing to Roman Christians who were ignorant of it all, would be proud to tell what these two friends of his had done for him. "I and all the Gentile Churches send our grateful thanks to them." Surely that word is not at all appropriate if Paul is writing from a town in the midst of the Greek Churches to a town in the midst of the Asiatic Christians. " All the Gentile Churches " means all the Churches in Greece and Asia. The phrase is only appropriate if he is writing from the midst of these Gentile Churches to some distant community of Christians whom he has never seen; and all the more appropriate if that community is prominently Jewish-Christian. ... "Also salute the Church that meets in their house." Prisca and Aquila did have a congregation in their house when they first settled at Ephesus (1 Cor.xvi.19), though not in the very early days of the Gospel there (Acts xviii.19, 26, xix.8, 9). But this very fact throws light on the present problem. For when Paul writes - years after this letter to Rome - to the bishop of Ephesus, and sends greetings to these old friends of his, he makes no mention of a church in their house; in fact immediately after the mention of their names he adds "and the household of Onesiphorus," indicating thereby that it was in his house Prisca and Aquila were now in the habit of worshipping. The implication surely is that the former congregation in their house in Ephesus had been broken up for some reason, and not, so far, resumed. What more likely reason can be suggested than that they had been absent for a prolonged period, and had possibly only recently returned when Paul wrote to Timothy (2 Tim.iv.19,vid. sup. p.1771.)?
But would they have a church in Rome on their return thither, seeing that they had been absent from the place so long? They had evidently been leaders in the great Christian movement that had flamed up in the Ghetto in Rome in the year 49AD. (Acts xviii.2). But they had been driven from Rome soon after this "enlightenment." There had been no time then to consolidate a congregation in their house from among the first-fruits of the revival. If the letter to the "Hebrews" was written by these two, must we not postulate some time of sojourn in Rome between the date of their expulsion and the writing of the letter? For this letter was directed to a congregation that had been sufficiently strong to maintain its identity during the years of their subsequent absence. Surely they did pay a prolonged visit to Rome some time after their expulsion. And if they had resumed their old life in Rome, what more natural than to suppose that they had once more taken their places as leaders of such a congregation? An authority of this kind is clearly presupposed by the letter to the "Hebrews."
And to whom would Paul send his earliest greetings, if not to his old friends who had first told him the story of the coming of the Cross to Rome? It would be the congregation that met in their house that he would mainly have in mind when he wrote his letter. It is addressed to a prominently Jewish-Christian community, even if the majority were Gentiles.
There is an old church still standing on the Aventine in Rome, which from the fourth to the eighth century was known as the church of St. Prisca. After this it was given the Titulus Aquilae et Priscae. The husband's name is added and put first. Does it not mark the forcefulness of the lady's personality that it is she alone who is first canonised? It strengthens the case for thinking that Prisca was mainly responsible for "Hebrews" to note here again the tendency to depreciate the place and work of women in the Church, a tendency which was probably the reason for the suppression of the author's name in the case of this letter. But it is surely very significant also that this old church is sometimes called Domus Aquilae et Priscae. The house! Perhaps the church is even built on the original site of this place of early Christian gathering - the most important site in short in the early history of the Church in Europe.
Already the mists seem lifted somewhat from the story of the Cross in Rome. Let us further pursue this list of names. "Salute my beloved Epaenetus, the first in Asia to be reaped for Christ." There is nothing intrinsically improbable in conjecturing that in these days of constant intercourse between Asia and the centre of the Empire, this Asiatic should have some time emigrated to Rome. But the probabilities strengthen when we begin to consider the case of Epaenetus. "The first in Asia to be reaped for Christ" was surely won to Christianity on the occasion of Paul's first brief visit to Ephesus with Prisca and Aquila (Acts xviii.19). For a time the cause hung fire in Ephesus - till the meteoric appearance of Apollos. Would not Prisca and Aquila befriend the lonely convert? Perhaps, suffering ostracism for his faith, he was employed by Aquila in the tent-making, and became their devoted friend. Is it unnatural to suppose that when the two were forced to leave -the town, he would travel with them to Rome? Why describe him as the first to be won in Asia, if this page of names was directed to Ephesus. Most Christians there would know; but in Rome the fact would be full of fresh interest. In view of all this it is somewhat exciting to discover that among the sepulchral inscriptions of this date found in Rome, there is oneto Epaenetus, an Ephesian!
"Salute Mary, who has toiled hard for us," the letter goes on. "You," is no doubt a better attested reading than "us." Nevertheless, copyists may have changed it because of the difficulty in Paul's saying "us," when the person spoken of was in Rome. And can we not find a significance in this reference to some one who, on the received reading, had "slaved" for Paul? "Slaved" is undoubtedly the import of the word. And since her service for Paul must have been recent, she must have recently settled in Rome. It can hardly be John Mark's mother. Mark did not come to Rome till later. Yet there is no further designation of this bearer of a very common name. But if we conjecture she was a Christian slave in the household of Prisca and Aquila, the vagueness at once disappears. Prisca, Aquila, Epaenetus and Mary are all named together, and there is nothing unlikely in the conjecture that they form a single household. Paul, with his delicate Christian courtesy, remembers how Mary toiled for him when he was an inmate of this household in Corinth and Ephesus. These four names would thus account for half the number of those with whom it can confidently be said that Paul here claims acquaintance.
Following upon these we might expect the names of some of the Jewish Christians who belonged to this congregation in Prisca's house. "Salute Adronicus and Juntas, fellow-countrymen and fellow-prisoners of mine; they are men of note among the Apostles, and they have been in Christ longer than I have." Paul at once confirms our expectation here, informing us that these were Jews; for when he speaks of kinsmen he means race-relations not blood-relations. But they were probably not residents in Palestine, for they bear Greek and Roman names; Jews of the Dispersion most likely. Early discipleship was an honourable distinction in the primitive Church. Perhaps they were among the crowd from all parts of the Empire who were won for Christ in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. The fact that they were disciples before Paul, would take us back to those days, if not even further still. "Strangers of Rome" were in that Pentecost crowd. If the phrase "among the Apostles" means "in the number of the apostles," their following of Jesus would go further back stillback to the days when He was alive. But it may only mean that they were recognised by the Apostles as men of outstanding faith. The phrase "fellow-prisoners of mine" does not necessarily mean that they were imprisoned along with Paul. Indeed it is difficult to imagine where they could have shared such an imprisonment with him. It could not have been in Philippi, for they were not in the company of Paul in that town; nor yet in Ephesus, for the historian expressly indicates that Paul was preserved by his friends from rough treatment there (Acts xix.295.); nor yet in Corinth either, for his treatment there can hardly be called imprisonment. In short, the only recorded imprisonment up to this time was one, which they almost certainly did not sharein Philippi; and if it had been in Ephesus, it would have been superfluous to mention the fact, if this page was part of a letter to Ephesus. But if the phrase means that they had shared a similar fate, though in another place, the way opens up for an interesting surmisal. If we are right about the origin and destination of the letter to the "Hebrews," Christianity began in Rome through the preaching of some that had heard the Lord (Heb. ii. 3). And as a result of the commotion that followed the "illumination" there, some of the leaders of the new movement, it would seem, were put under restraint (Heb.x.34). Was it then partly through the preaching of Andronicus and Junias that the congregation of Jewish Christians took origin in Prisca's house? To these Jews, freed-men perhaps of Greek and Roman masters, or to such as these, the Church in Rome owes its birth. To the activity of such as these the edict of Claudius was due. In the words of Suetonius, "he expelled the Jews who were persistently rioting, a certain Chrestus being the moving spirit."
The names which immediately follow: Ampliatus, Urbanus, Stachys, Apelles, may also have been leaders in this Jewish-Christian congregation. We do not know enough to say that they were all Jews: two are Latin, two are Greek names. But Apelles looks like a Graecised form of the Hebrew name "Abel," and Ampliatus, "my beloved in the Lord," and Stachys, "my beloved," would seem, as these phrases suggest, to have been known to Paul; may indeed have been converts - or fellow-workers. Urbanus is described as the latter. "My fellow-worker in Christ" is Paul's commonest description of active Christians; and here the phrase is "our fellow-worker." The word may include Prisca and Aquila; fellow-workers with these, they would be fellow-workers with Paul also. The names Ampliatus and Urbanus are found in similar juxtaposition in a list of imperial freedmen on a Roman tomb-inscription of date 115AD. Almost more suggestive still is the appearance of the name Ampliatus on the catacomb of Domitilla, a highborn Roman lady who became a Christian towards the end of the first century. It seems probable that a person of this name "was conspicuous in the earliest Roman Church, and may have been the means of introducing Christianity to a great Roman house."
Stachys and Apelles are Greek names, and appear as slave-names on sepulchral inscriptions of the imperial household. Perhaps they were leading members, not of Prisca's congregation, but of the little community of Christians which Paul is about to mention.
For we must hasten now to say that the earliest Christians in Rome were not all Jews. A careful reading of Paul's letter to Rome convinces us that there were Gentiles as well as Jews, perhaps more Gentiles than Jews, among the first Christians of Rome. And the page of names continues, "Salute them of the household of Aristobulus." In other words, "Salute the Christian slaves in the retinue of Aristobulus." We seem to pass here quite definitely to another little house-church, whose members were associates in the same serfdom. And contemporary history tells us of a certain Aristobulus, who was grandson of Herod the Great. A friend and adherent of the Emperor Claudius, he apparently lived and died in a private station. Although he was probably dead by this time, and his slaves, no doubt, added to his friend the Emperor's household, they would still be known by the name of their former master. The identification of this group of Christians with the members of this slave-retinue who were Christians, has the highest degree of probability. It is no argument against this that Paul would have used the term Ἀριστοβουλίανοι if he were referring here to the slave-retinue of a man of that name. Apart from the fact that Paul is not always careful either with words or syntax, he could not well have used the word here, for he was not sending greetings to the entire slave-retinue of Aristobulus, but only, as the phrase correctly suggests, to the handful who had become Christian. There can be little doubt that this grandson of Herod, would have had Jewish slaves in his retinue. We have seen that "Apelles," who may be one of them, is probably a Graecised form of "Abel." But look further at the name that follows this greeting to them of the household of Aristobulus: "Salute Herodion, my kinsman." Does not the name indicate a member of the retinue of some prince of the dynasty of Herod? Perhaps he was born to Aristobulus by some Jewish slave-girl in his palace, and had received the name half in endearment, half in contempt"Herodling," or "Little Herod." It would be like the tender Christian courtesy of Paul to call such an one "my kinsman." Fellowship in Christ blots out all marks of degradation and shame. Tradition has it that both Herodion and Olympas (later named) were beheaded at Rome when Peter was crucified.
But now another house-church comes into view. "Greet them that be of the household of Narcissus, which are in the Lord." The very form of the phrase"those of the household of Narcissus - those in the Lord"shows that Paul is conscious he is not addressing the entire household of Narcissus, and could not say Ναρκισσίανοι. Three or four years before the date of this letter, a well known freedman, Narcissus, a man of proverbial wealth, and exercising a powerful influence in the dynastic intrigues of the time, was put to death by Agrippina, on the accession of Nero to the imperial throne. His slaves were doubtless added to the imperial retinue. He was not a Christian any more than Aristobulus. It is difficult for those who believe this to be a fragment of a letter to Ephesus to parry the strong probability that these are the households referred to here. No such names can be identified as belonging to Ephesus; indeed, not one person in all the chapter, outside the household of Prisca, can be claimed as ever belonging to that city. And the strong probability that these householdsparts of Caesar's retinueare the households referred to here, is greatly heightened by a word in Paul's letter from Rome to the Church at Philippi; "All God's people here salute you, especially they who are of Caesar's household" (Phil.iv.22). It is clear that from the very outset Christianity had gained a footing among the imperial slaves: so many of the names here given are common among slaves. That they would suffer persecution for their faith is a matter of course. Apelles is here described as "that tried Christian," a Jewish slave probably, who, because of his prominence during the commotions of the days of the illumination (Heb.x.32), had suffered for his adherence to the new faith. These little house-churches must have met furtively, in the seclusion of the palace grounds, among the catacombs, or in other secret places; and in constant fear of detection. Tryphaena and Tryphosa, the ladies "dainty" and "delicate" (or "disdain"), who bear Greek names, may have belonged to this Christian community. Paul plays upon their names when he commends them for the way in which they do their hard drudgery work " in the Lord." In all probability they were twin sisters. For similar-sounding names frequently indicated this in ancient times. And Persis he knows of; probably Prisca and Aquila had told him with what affection the first Christians in Rome regarded her. "The beloved," he calls her. She was an aged saint, it would seem, for he speaks as if the days of her hard drudgery were over. "She has toiled strenuously in the Lord." Perhaps it means that she, too, had been an active Christian propagandist in the days of the enlightenment. The delicacy of Paul's reference is apparent here. Persis is "the beloved," not "my," nor "our" beloved, as in the case of Ampliatus and Stachys. And he is chivalrous too: it is of women only he uses the word for strenuous toil.
The reference that follows is a deeply interesting one. It is perhaps the most intimate reference in the chapter, and at first sight it would seem to be all against the claim of this chapter to be part of the letter to Rome.
"Salute Rufus, one of the Lord's chosen; also his mother, who has been a mother to me."
But the name leads us out along another strand of the romance of the Cross, so wonderful that we are fain to say it ought to be true. The fact that the coming of the Cross to Rome did cause something like a little Pentecost down in the Ghetto seems to suggest that it was a breath of the Spirit, borne from the rushing, mighty wind of the Jerusalem awakening, that lit the sacred fire in Rome. Many of these first converts on the streets of the Holy City had been influenced, doubtless, by Jesus in the days of His flesh. And some of them were strangers from "Rome" (Acts ii.10). Was the Roman centurion from Capernaum there, or that other centurion who with a deep stirring of the spirit watched Him die? And does the name "Rufus" suggest nothing to our minds? "Chosen in the Lord," Paul calls him, as if his singling out for Christ's service had almost been due to an act of our Lord Himself. Let us assume that he belonged to the Roman Christians, and see whither the facts will carry us. He was a well-known Christian in this community. Is there any mention of him elsewhere in the New Testament? In the Gospel of Mark we are told of a man who was"the father of Alexander and Rufus." Why does Mark insert these names without further comment? Obviously because they were well-known Christians in the community in whose midst Mark wrote his Gospel. This was in Rome, and only a few years subsequent to the time of this letter of Paul's. Two outstanding Christians of the same name, contemporaries in the same community, must have been further distinguished in the documents of the time. It is practically certain that the Rufus mentioned by Paul and by Mark is one and the same person.
"They took Jesus away to crucify Him," says Mark, "and they forced Simon a Cyrenian, who was passing on his way from the country (the father of Alexander and Rufus) to carry His cross" (Mark xv.21).
Striking indeed is the story which these facts reveal.
Simon of Cyrene, the swarthy proselyte from the far-off colony in Northern Africa, had come a pilgrim to this memorable Passover in Jerusalem. Making the most of his religious opportunities, he was probably coming in from the camping ground outside the city to pay his morning vows in the Temple. Suddenly a rabble burst from the Damascus gate. He heard the loud cries "Crucify, crucify." He saw the glitter of the Roman spears; and in the midst, three figures dragging the ghastly gibbets on which they were about to be hung. Then the crowd stopped. For a moment the angry cries were silent, and the wailing of women fell on his ears. He had stood aside to let the sickening sight go past; but on the impulse he stepped again into the roadway to learn the cause of the delay. One of the victims, a pale, worn, bleeding Figure, had stumbled and fallen beneath the heavy beam that now pinned Him to the earth. And as he watched the Roman soldiers lifting it off the Man, he was touched on the shoulder by a haughty Roman spear. It was the signal of impressment. Vain to protest against the imperial majesty of Rome! Ere he was well aware what had happened, he was on the way to the hill of punishment, bearing Another's cross. As this unwilling actor in a deed of unspeakable horror and shame felt the loathsome burden on his shoulder, his whole frame must have quivered with dread and repulsion. Was he the victim of a dream unsightly, or was it his own cross he was carrying? And then he looked at that torn and fainting Figure, draggedalmost bornealong by the rough soldiers, in a state of exhaustion and collapse; and he remembered. Yonder was the criminal, whoever He was; and he was carrying His burden! Cruel irony of fate to be made the substitute for a stranger who was nothing to him, whom he had never seen before, whose very crime he was ignorant of! So he toiled up the hillside with sense of wrong and outrage burning in his breast. When he reached the fatal spot he laid the Cross down, no doubt, with a right good will, and hurried away without waiting for a single word of recognition for his help. Let others wait to see the cruel nails battered through the trembling flesh - to see the writhing figures hoisted on the hill, as with a jarring shock the ends of the crosses were shot home into the holes that had been dug for them. Let others wait to hear the shrieks and curses of the tormented victims in their agony; let others wait to mock and jeer. He had had enough of horror to last for many a day to come. He would go to say his hindered and unquiet prayers, to keep his belated tryst, and speak his boiling soul's disgust and horror to his wondering friends.
But when Simon's anger cooled, he must have remembered again the meek serenity of the bloodstained face that looked at him from beneath the crown of thornsthe unearthly dignity of the Prisoner whose Cross he bore. On him, too, as on all who saw it, that Figure laid its haunting spell. He saw God in that face, not as the grim King of Terrors, but as majestic Gentleness and Purity. And the great Heart who even in the hour of mortal weakness sought to dry the tears of the weeping daughters of Jerusalem, must have turned with a look of radiant gratitude on Simon as he laid the burden down. The memory of that look must have come back to him when all the other bitter thoughts had fled. The soul that had looked at him through those eyes haunted him for weeks with a nameless unrest. Something more than gratitude had been visible in that look. He saw distinctly written there, "I will repay." Many a night and many a morning the pious proselyte must have laid this mystery, his soul's perplexity, his heart's unrest, before his God.
And Simon of Cyrene came to look back on this interruption of his journey as the one thing he would not have missed for all the world. Here lay the significance of the story for the evangelists who recorded it. The man who carried the Cross did not miss the salvation whereof it is the instrument and symbol. The living and exalted Christ did not forget him who earned His gratitude in the hour of His deepest humiliation. The Gospel, "the Hound of Heaven," tracked him out among ten thousand times ten thousand in that pagan world, and brought him to the fold. For Rufus and Alexander, his two sons, became followers of the Crucified, and men of prominence in the Church of Rome. The Cross became all the glory of this North African home. Paul says of Rufus' mother, "she was a mother to me." Thirty years had passed since Calvary when Paul wrote these words. He is recalling how this zealous Christian woman once gave him lodging, and tended to his wants for a time as though he were her own son. Where was this gracious service rendered? The historian of the Acts informs us that, after the martyrdom of Stephen, hunted Christians fled to Antioch, and among them were men of Cyrene who began to declare their message to the Gentiles. Later, he mentions among those prophets and teachers, "Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene" (Acts xi.l9f., i.1). Simeon is the Hebrew form of Simon, and in the days of the early Roman Empire "Simon Niger" is equivalent to saying "Simon the African." Tradition has identified the two. Was it here in Antioch, after Barnabas had fetched Saul from Tarsus, that Rufus' mother mothered him? Whether this be so or not, there is evidence enough for saying that the whole family had become Christian. Simon of Cyrene must by-and-by have returned to Africa, and then crossed the Mediterranean and settled in Rome. Here then is one more stream of Gospel influence that reached the capital of the Empire, and helped to plant the Cross in Caesar's household, where it grew and grew until the great Caesar himself, ruler of the then civilised world some three hundred years after Calvary, had to bow his head and say, "Galilean, thou hast conquered."
Very likely it was on the streets of Jerusalem, at Pentecost, when the crowds were listening to Peter, Cyrenians amongst them, that Simon heard at length the story of the Nazarene whose Cross he bore. And the light broke on his path. When others gloried in the amazing career, calling Jesus "Son of God," perhaps when he heard Paul declaring in his passionate way that the Cross of Christ was all his boast, Simon was able proudly to say: "I carried it for Him; I was permitted to share His suffering; that was my golden morning, when I was called from all my own hopes and plans to take up the burden of Another; and I did not let it drop."
So even this intimate reference in the letter does not debar us from thinking that Rome was the destination of this page. It rather tends to strengthen the proof, and gives us a vivid and entrancing story of one of the ways in which the Cross reached the centre of the ancient world. But our page of names is not yet exhausted.
"Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas and the brethren that are with them."
These are all men's names; and most, if not all of them, have been found on sepulchral inscriptions of the imperial household. They are all Greek names, and this suggests that they were compatriots, possibly members of the same slave-retinue, and for that reason associated in a congregation by themselves. The phrase "the brethren that are with them" indicates that Paul is mentioning only the most prominent, possibly the senior Christians, "the first nucleus, the leading individuals" of the congregation. Asyncritus, who is named first, may have been at their head. Pseudo-Dorotheus asserts that Patrobasthe name of a freedman contemporary of Nerobecame bishop of Puteoli. If Hermas is the author of the ancient "Pilgrim's Progress" which bears his name The Shepherd of Herma - she had been a slave, sold to a certain Rhoda in Rome. He describes himself as "patient and good-tempered, and always smiling," "full of all simplicity and great guilelessness." After a period of worldliness and sharp practice in business, as a freedman, he lost his wealth through the misdeeds of his ill-trained family. Saddled with a sharp-tongued wife, dull-witted himself and filled with an endless curiosity, he at length became "useful and profitable unto life." (He may have seen Paul's letter about Onesimus"useful," who became useless, and was made "profitable"and been comforted by this prodigal's story.) He seems to have been one of those who felt keenly the rebuke and the reproach of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews in Rome; and to have been greatly exercised by that stern word which speaks of the impossibility of repentance for post-baptismal sins (Heb.vi.4, .17). He writes to mitigate the severity of the word, and to make an earnest call to repentance. The story is alluring, although the fragment of Muratori forbids the identification with Paul's Hermas.
Yet a fifth little Christian community is mentioned here. "Salute Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints that are with them." Philologus the Greek, and Julia the Roman are probably man and wife, the hosts of this little house-church. Nereus and his sister Nereis? and Olympas may be his family. Nereus is said to have been a diaconus of the Christian Princess Domitilla. Among the names of the inscriptions is that of Domitia Nereis, wife of an imperial freed-man. Lightfoot cites the case of a Claudia Aug. L. Nereis, related to a mother and daughter Tryphaena. A tradition of the Hypomnema of Peter and Paul relates that Olympas was beheaded along with Herodion, when Peter was crucified.
So by tracing out the connections of these names on this New Testament page, we have learned much about these five groups or churches of the earliest Christians in Romesomething of the origin of Christianity in the Eternal City, and some dim glimpses of their experience as Christians. Ten at least of these namesStachys, Apelles, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Hermes, Hermas, Patrobas, Philologus, Julia, Nereus, are found as names of persons connected with Caesar's household and contemporary with Paul, on sepulchral inscriptions on the Appian Way. Perhaps some of these Christians whom Paul here names are among the victims who were "worried by dogs, or crucified, or burned as lights for the performances in Nero's gardens, with Nero himself in a jockey's dress, mixing with the crowd or driving in a chariot." For many were buried on this Appian Way. So they passed "My beloved Stachys," "Apelles, that tried Christian," and the rest. There they rest in peace. Their names are written in the Book of Life.
In his second letter to Timothy Paul adds a few more names to the list:
"Eubulus greets you; so do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brotherhood."
Eubulus, a Roman Christian with a Greek name, may have been a slave or a Roman freedman; he is otherwise quite unknown. One tradition has it that Prisca was the mother of Pudens; another that Claudia was the mother of Linus. Since they are mentioned together here, Pudens and Claudia may be husband and wife, and Linus their son. Roman tradition makes Pudens a senator, and the host of Peter when he came to Rome. He is said to have suffered martyrdom along with Aristarchus and Trophimus and Paul. Irenaeus and Eusebius both regard Linus as the first bishop of Rome after the Apostles. In the Syriac Teaching of Simon Cephas, it is said that he was a disciple of Peter, a deacon, whom the Apostle makes bishop in his stead; and that it was he who took up the bodies of Peter and Paul by night and buried them. It has been suggested that he was bishop of Rome from 64 to 76AD, after which Clement succeeded him.
The evidence is flimsy for the tale with which we would close this chapter; but it kindles a certain interest in us who inhabit these islands. The poet Martial had a friend called Pudens, a soldier and a contemporary of Paul. To him the poet casually imputes the foulest vices of heathenism. But he also tells us the name of his bride - Claudia Rufina; and this lady was of British birth. In the year 1722, a fragmentary Roman inscription was found at Chichester, which records that a Roman soldier, Pudens, the husband of Claudia, presented the site for a temple to the British king Cogidubnus; and he built thereon a temple to Neptune. It was the Roman's gift to the barbarian king who had given him his daughter in marriage. It is a pardonable fancy that this may be the Pudens and Claudia who are here named as the intimates of Paul! For there was a Claudia, daughter of a British king who came to Rome in the train of Pomponia, wife of Aulus Plautus, the Roman commander in Britain. Were she and her husband won for Christ by the Apostle? Pudens may have come in contact with Paul, possibly through his having charge of the soldiers that guarded the aged prisoner. If the Apostle never realised his dream of visiting Spain and the islands beyond, one would like to think that the winning of these two may have been to him the first swallow, foretelling the coming of the Christian summer there.